Tuesday, 31 July 2018

So today we have a 21-page sourcebook with all the details you need to run a medieval-authentic layout of a small merchant company or caravan. This includes:

-potential encounters on the road
-market fairs (and the famous Court of PiePowders)
-Taxes and Tolls
-A whole mechanic for handling bribery!
-How to become an "Owler" & sell contraband
-Plus much more!

Sunday, 29 July 2018

Yesterday I was invited to be a guest star on the latest episode of Geek Gab. Along with Daddy Warpig and Jeffro Johnson, we talked about the SJW influence on D&D and the RPG hobby, and Jeffro and I had a very sophisticated and intelligent debate on the subject of just how important or significant Appendix N of the 1e DMG is or is not.

Saturday, 28 July 2018

The PCs just managed to defeat Zozzsz the demon prince, and seal the gateway to the Nether Regions which was the last thing stopping them from using the Sunstaff to reach the Crown of Creation. Then they teleported back to the Sun to have a brief rest before proceeding with their final move to stop Sezrekhan.

Now:

-After one night of rest, the King of Elfland contacts... Vizi. By mistake, thinking he's the Vegomagus.
"Vegomagus, it is I, the King of Elfland!"
"No, this is Vizi."
"No, I'm the King of Elfland."
"Huh? No I'm Vizi."

-"One of them is high as fuck, the other has Alzheimer's. This could go on for some time."

-"I'm calling you, Vegomagus, because now you must find me the Comfy Slippers!"
"I'm not the Vegomagus!"
"You're not?"
"NO. He looks like shit, and I have these cool glasses, see?"
"Hmm. That's true."

-The King of Elfland finally tells the Vegomagus that he's sending him to the last known location of the Comfy Slippers, which are not just any comfy slippers as Vegomagus had assumed, but apparently a specific magical item.
"I will send your friends to aid you."
"He has friends?"
"Well, I'll send cool dude and this other guy."

-The Vegomagus, Vizi and Catboy find themselves magically transported through space and time.
They rematerialize in what looks like an early-20th-century-tech city with a film-noir kind of feel to it. And from what they see, the city is populated by rat-people. Rat-people who dress up in 1930s styles, but wear no shoes.
"They all have rat feet!"
"I have cat feet."
"I have hooves."
"Yes yes, you're both freaks."

-"Let's talk to someone. Excuse me sir, do you know where we could find some kind of comfy slippers?"
"Say, what are you wearing there, buddy? Is that some kind of halconlord cosplay?"
"I am a halconlord!"
"Hah, you're really getting into the role."
"You know about the Halconlords?"
"Only what I remember from school. Long ago they tried to conquer this whole continent but they were defeated when their master was imprisoned. They don't exist anymore."
"NOOOOO!"
"We're in the future!"

-"Say, you fellas aren't from around here are ya?"
"No. Um.. we're tourists. We got lost, when our tour guide dumped us."
"Darn it, in Rat City you gotta watch out for those con men!"
"Yeah, because they're rats!"
"What do you mean by that, bub?"
"Oh, um. nothing. Sorry."

-"Sorry guys, I'm a cat. I'm racist against rats."

-"So this city full of rats is called Rat City. You guys are really unimaginative."
"Can we try not to totally fuck this place up?"

-"Boylord I swear I'll send you to Elfland if you don't shut up."

-The rat they were talking to doesn't know anything about Comfy Slippers, but suggests that they may be able to buy some at Ratowski's Department Store.

-"Hey Vizi, after I rested I leveled up, and now I learned a spell that can do a ton of fire damage."
"I can do that too, it's called a grenade."
"Yeah, but my spell comes from my hands."
"Yeah, my grenade too."
"Yeah, well, my spell will cause me pain every time I cast it..."
"This grenade could cause you pain too."

-"No one cares that we're heavily armed because they think we're in costumes."
"Say, are you guys filming one of those Rat Rogers talkies or something?"
"I really hate this city."

-They get to Ratoski's, but it has no comfy slippers at all.
"You fellas should try to check out the stores in Little Humantown, by the port."

-They hail a cab to get to Little Humantown, and their driver is a Boatswine.
"What are you doing here."
"We're probably going to fuck everything up."
"Wait, are you revolutionaries?"
"Um.. yes."
"Comrades! You are not alone here. We have a meeting tonight. Let me give you the address."
"Oh um, thanks, comrade!"

-They get to the ethnic neighborhood of Little Humantown. They tour several human-clothing stores, and Vizi buys some nice slippers, but not the Comfy Slippers.
"You know, things are going fairly well. I was expecting things to be going really badly by now."
"Yeah, nothing bad is going to happen on this trip!"
"Stop saying that! This is your last warning, boylord."

-The PCs stop at a diner to eat, and they run into a friendly-looking cleric. The cleric is a bit distressed at the Vegomagus' spell-burned weakened state.
"What happened to you, my boy?"
"He masturbated too hard."

-Boylord starts to talk to the cleric, and between his nuttiness, the Vegomagus' clearly ill state and their bizarre form of dress, the Cleric decides to make a phone call. Pretty soon, the Looney Van is driving up to the diner.
"Damn it, the cleric sold us out!"
"One of the guys coming out of the van has a stick with a little net on it."

-"Guys, we could get away if I cast a spell that will Call the Outer Dark"
"NO! That'll just make things worse. Let's go with them and see what happens."

-They're taken along in the Looney Van to the Our Lady of Perpetual Madness Insane Asylum, on the outskirts of town.

-At the entrance, some tense negotiations happen as the staff wants the PCs to disarm. Finally, they agree that Boylord will disarm and go in for a psychological evaluation, while the other two wait at the entry hall.
"OK, now while your friend is being assessed, why don't you two put your weapons into the box?"
"No. That's not the deal."
"Come on you nutbag, don't make me force you..."
"Screw it, I shoot him."

-All hell breaks loose when Vizi murders one of the orderlies and they realize that their weapons aren't just props.
"I hate these people. I'm going to cast color spray to curse the whole city with winter. It what they deserve for calling me a dangerous lunatic!"

-"You fail your roll."
"So he looks like he's waving his arms and chanting babble, and nothing's happening. Yeah he totally doesn't look like a lunatic."

-Father O'Shaughnessy, the cleric who brought them in, tries to raise his tablet to stop the bloodshed, but Vizi destroys it.
"What have you done?"
"You tried to cast a spell, that was uncalled for!"

-The orderlies flee behind locked doors, but Vizi and Vegomagus have taken Father O'Shaughnessy hostage.
"What are you boys hoping to accomplish here?"
"We were just trying to have breakfast!"
"I bet that's going to be the title of the Blog update!"

-"Do you just go around putting anyone in the insane asylum?"
"You were all acting like lunatics!"
"That's crazy talk, cleric!"

-"I open the door to find Boylord."
"It's locked."
"I wish I had the Knock spell!"
"Knowing you it would probably have a mercurial effect that would make it useless."
"Yeah, like, every time you open a door someone dies."
"You know what I always say: every time the Vegomagus closes a planar gate, another one gets opened!"

-Meanwhile, Boylord is at the rat-psychologist's office. He's trying to tell him about Lady Halcon, Sami and Anema.
"Yeah, they're all in the Sun."
"Of course. I tell you what, I'm going to prescribe you some happy pills, a good long rest, and electroshock therapy."

-"Why are you people doing this?!"
"We need some Comfy Slippers!"

-"Don't worry, we're going to teleport out of here in a tree."
"He's not crazy, he really does that."

-"Screw it, I just kill the cleric."
"Can't you just knock him out?"
"How, like with a non-lethal light saber?"
"Yeah, Vizi's not a pacifist like Heidi!"

-They knock out the cleric.
"I still say we should kill him. He's the only one who knows what we look like!"
"No he isn't!"
"Yeah, you guys have met like.. dozens and dozens of people."
"Yeah but those probably won't remember us."
"Sure, because you've been so inconspicuous."

-They did kill a nurse name Rat-chet.
"I steal her ID! You know, just in case."

-The exits are covered in rat-cops. The catboy tosses a grenade that kills several of them.
"Vizi, toss another grenade... you don't have a flash grenade do you?"
"No. They're useless!"
"Yeah, that's the kind of thing a pacifist would use."

-They manage to run to a tree, and Vegomagus forest-walks them to the only tree that grows on 97th street. A rat-hobo spots them.
"Hey, here, have this coin, you didn't see nothing, alright?"
"Sure thing mister. Hehe man I'm going to buy so much smack with this coin..."

-The PCs find a nearby flophouse that rents rooms by the day or week.
"Let's hide out here for a few hours until things calm down."
"We blew up most of an insane asylum, intentionally released everyone in the psycho ward, and killed a bunch of cops. I don't think it's going to calm down in a few hours."

-"Do you think I could disguise myself by putting a robe on top of my robe?"
"Yeah, that would be twice as inconspicuous."

-"I could cut a hole in this soiled bedsheet and wear it as a poncho!"
"I don't think that would work."
"Yeah, you're right. The sheets are mostly white and I'd look lame."

-Suddenly, there's a knock at the door of their flophouse room.
"Who is it?"
"Goons."
"What?"
"Hired goons."

-Turns out that the hired goons are members of the Rat-mafia. The clerk at the flophouse entrance told the mobsters that the heavily-armed psychos the cops were looking for had just checked in.
"Don't worry, we ain't here to cause you any trouble. I'm Luigi Rattini, and these are my associates Johnny Tightlips and Jerry the Snitch."

-The rat-mobsters want to take the PCs with them and hire them out for a job that needs some muscle.
"I like these weirdos. What do you think, Johnny?"
"Eh.. maybe I do and maybe I don't."

-"So are we going to have to kill people?"
"Oh yeah. You'll have to whack a whole bunch of people. But we do have some rules, like for example we don't whack kids!"
"Well yeah.. that would be seriously perverted!"
"I think Boylord doesn't understand what the word 'whack' means.."

-"These rat mobsters are all good fellas.."

-The Rat mobsters are impressed by all of Vizis guns. They're less impressed by the Vegomagus.
"Say, has your buddy there got cancer or something?"
"No, he's a wizard."

-The rat mob take them over to their hideout in the Legitimate Businessmen's Association.
"Nice.. they have linguine!"

-"Do you know anything about sezrekhan?"
"What's that?"
"He's a daemon?"
"Oh no. We don't get into that kind of stuff. We criminals are a superstitious lot."

-The Rat-Mafia want the PCs to blow up a bunch of Boatswine revolutionaries, who are having a big rally tonight somewhere. They don't know where, but fortunately the PCs have the address in the slip of paper the Boatswine cab driver gave them.
"So are they like a rival gang?"
"Well, they horn in on our business, sure, but mostly we want them all whacked because they're a bunch of stinking reds!"
"The rat-mafia may be gangsters, but they're also patriots!"

-"Jerry the Snitch will go with you to tell us everything about how your job really went down."
"Yeah, and he'll be able to tell you anything you need to know."

-The PCs head over to the port area, where they find that the revolutionaries are meeting in a building labelled "Abandoned Warehouse".
"Man, this city is just full of original people!"

-"Welcome, comrades, to our People's Committee to Destroy the Social Order!"
"I'm glad our communist player isn't here today to see us kill all these guys."
"Ah, he doesn't care, I bet he'd join in."

-"Wait, are you the brave guerillas who killed all those policemen?"
"Nooo...er, wait, yes!"
"You have struck the first blow in our glorious revolution! We would be honored to have you on stage at this rally!"
"Sure.. except our friend Vegomagus, he's shy because of how he was horribly disfigured."
"In an industrial accident?"
"Um, yes."
"Then he is a victim of the capitalist system!"
"Look at him, he's hideous!"
"I hate you guys."

-"Boylord, you plant the C4 charges in the supporting columns. Sneak around, but if someone sees you, tell them you're pooping in a corner."
"I'm not going to say that, Vizi!"

-The rally begins.
"Welcome comrades! We have much to discuss about our ongoing plans to destroy the capitalist oligarchy of Rat City, and start a great workers' revolution. Led by us, the intellectuals, of course."
"Yes, that'll work."
"No one's ever really tried that yet!"

-Vizi is invited onto the podium to say a few words.
"The real Revolution will start with a Bang, and it starts tonight! All that is before you will burn!"
"Hooray!"

-"In this book, I have my instructions for the revolution."
"So it's like a manifesto?"
"Yes."
"Like some kind of Manifesto of Communism."

-After planting the explosives, the PCs slip away from the rally.
"We walk away from the building in slow motion, glancing back briefly as we blow the charges all cinematic."

-"I thought we were going whack all those communists, but instead we killed them."
"We blew them up."
"Yeah, instead of whacking them we blew them!"
"I don't mean we blew them like that."
"I'm surrounded by an imbecile and a guy in deep denial."

-Having fulfilled their part of the bargain, the Rat Mafia take the PCs to the Rat-Jazz Club, to meet with Bebe's ex-boyfriend. To their collective surprise, they discover it's BOLT-O!
"BOLT-0 HAD AMOROROUS RELATIONS WITH BEBE BUT SHE HAS BROKEN BOLT-0'S HEART!"
"You have a heart?"
"BOLT-O WAS SPEAKING METAPHORICALLY. HOWEVER, BOLT-O ALSO KEEPS A HUMAN HEART IN HIS CHEST COMPARTMENT STORAGE UNIT, FOR EMERGENCIES."

-"BOLT-0, did you know that you're the leader of the Time Dinosaurs, in the future, when you're just a giant head?"
"SO BOLT-O WILL CREATE THE TIME DINOSAURS IN THE FUTURE, WHO HAVE IN TURN AFFECTED HIS PAST. INTERESTING!"
"Yes, and in that sense we created time travel circles."
"LIKE LOOPER, NOT TIME COP!"

-"Yeah, and um, in the future you change your name to 'bolt-zero', which is why I call you that."
"THAT IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY TO BE TRUE."

-"So wait, we're not in the future at all, are we? We're like, way in the past!"

-"IS THERE SOME GREAT CRISIS IN THE FUTURE?"
"Yes."
"IS THERE SOMETHING THAT BOLT-O CAN DO IN THE PAST TO AVERT IT? IS THAT WHY YOU HAVE COME."
"No, we came here for slippers."
"But while you mention it, you could not invent BOLT-1."
"WHAT IS BOLT-1?"
"I'm not going to tell you, because that would change time."
"Dude, you realize you just gave him the idea in the first place, right?"

-"BOLT-0 WILL CREATE BOLT-1 TO TRY TO CAST MAGIC?"
"No.. aw, fuck it, yes."
"BOLT-0 WILL PROCEED WITH THIS PLAN BUT WILL TRY TO MAKE SURE IT WORKS THIS TIME."
"This is pointless."

-"BOLT-0 IS GLAD TO HEAR HE IS ALIVE 2000 YEARS IN THE FUTURE."
"Actually you died."
"BOLT-0 DIED?"
"Well, in our present. But you're alive again in the future."

-"SO IN THE FUTURE, BOLT-0 AND THIS BILL THE ELF WILL BE FRIENDS?"
"Well, yeah, sort of."
"IN THAT CASE WHEN BOLT-0 FIRST MEETS HIM HE WILL MAKE A POINT TO HANG AROUND HIM."

-"You guys are causing all the things that eventually happened to happen!"
"This is becoming not so much Looper as 12 Monkeys."

-Unfortunately, at that moment the Rat-Jazz Club is raided by a bunch of Rat Police and a Tiger-man Detective!
"BOLT-0 MUST FLEE, HE IS WANTED! WE CAN ESCAPE OUT THE BACK DOOR."
"Quick, they're escaping out the back!"
"BOLT-0 MEANT TO WHISPER THIS BUT HE CANNOT CONTROL THE VOLUME OF HIS OWN VOICE!"

-"So wait, the tiger who was leading the raid is also called Inspector Tiger?"
"This city so fucking unoriginal!!"

-"Is Bebe going to give us the Comfy Slippers?"
"BOLT-O IS UNCERTAIN. BEBE IS A BITCH."
"Is she powerful, a rat person, or a mutant or what?"
"BEBE IS A CHICKEN."
"Do you mean literally? So when the Rat-mobsters were saying she was a 'hot chick' they really meant a chicken?!"

-"WAIT, IN THE FUTURE YOU ARE IN POSSESSION OF THE SUNSTAFF?"
"Yeah, you tried to take it from us in our past when we met you in the future when you were just a giant head!"
"BOLT-0 WILL MAKE A NOTE OF THAT!"
"Great, now we know why he chose us to go fight the Dimension Bugs!"

-"Hey, can Bebe even talk?"
"SHE SPEAKS CHICKEN."
"OK, so she's sentient, right?"
"BOLT-0 WOULD NOT HAVE A LENGTHY ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH A NON-SENTIENT CHICKEN. THAT WOULD JUST BE SILLY!"

-"WE HAVE ARRIVED. BEBE LIVES IN THE PENTHOUSE OF THIS BUILDING."
"She lives in the penthouse?"
"SHE IS A WEALTHY HEIRESS."

-It turns out Bebe no longer has the Comfy Slippers; she gave them away as a gift to her new boyfriend, LIFT-R.
"YOU WOULD NOT GIFT THEM TO BOLT-O BUT YOU GAVE THEM TO LIFT-ARR?"
"bkawwwrk!"
"BOLT-O DOES NOT CARE HOW HE CLAIMS HIS NAME IS PRONOUNCED, IT IS LOGICAL THAT HIS NAME BE PRONOUNCED LIFT-ARR."

-The PCs make their way to LIFT-R's apartment. He is apparently a clunky-looking 1950s-style robot like BOLT-O.
"So he looks like you."
"INCORRECT. HE IS AN INFERIOR BEAM-LIFTING ROBOT, NOT A SUPERIOR BOLT-TIGHTENING ROBOT!"

-"Hey, before I forget: if you can, in the future, you should try to get in touch with us the day after the demon prince Zozzsz is cast back into the Nether Regions!"

-"Hey BOLT-0, remember this date and return to it... right now.. to help us!"
"BOLT-O WOULD NOT DO THAT AS IT MIGHT CAUSE A TEMPORAL PARADOX."
"That couldn't happen because this is Looper."
"WE HAVE ALREADY ESTABLISHED THAT THIS IS CLOSER TO 12 MONKEYS."

-"We should sneak up to his door..."
"AGREED. STEALTH MODE ACTIVATING!"
"oh for fuck's sake.."

-"SO WE MEET AGAIN, LIFT-ARR."
"LIFT-R's PROPER PR0NUNCIATION IS LIFT-ER"
"And BOLT-0's is BOLT-zero!"
"LIFT-R HAD NOT CONSIDERED THAT. HE WILL CALL YOU THAT FROM NOW ON. HA HA HA."

-BOLT-O and LIFT-R gets into a fight, and the PCs join in. Vegomagus tries to cast his new Scorching Ray spell, gets a 1, and his transparent skin turns a slightly-less-transparent green.
"So now my insides don't show?"
"They show a little less."

-"Visi, hit his torso!"
"Wow, I didn't know Captain Obvious was still in the party."

-"ATTENTION NEIGHBORS! LIFT-R IS UNDER ATTACK BY WANTED CRIMINALS!"
"IGNORE! IGNORE! ALL IS WELL! REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES AND DO NOT CALL THE POLICE!"

-Vegomagus fails yet again to cast a spell.
"QUERY: IS VEGOMAGUS REALLY A WIZARD?"

-LIFT-R is finally killed. Then Vegomagus casts locate object to try to find the slippers, only to not get any results.
"Seriously, we're not sure if he's a wizard."

-Boylord searches the apartment, and notices a package apparently arrived in the day's mail for LIFT-R.
"Hey, guys, this box is ticking!"
"Oh Shit!"

-Boylord manages to toss the bomb out the window.
"Why did someone try to kill LIFT-R? I mean, other than us?"
"I don't know, but the package's return address was the Legitimate Businessmens' Association. Isn't that where we just were?"
"The Rat Mob!"

-They hear police sirens approaching, just as Vegomagus' extended Locate Object senses the slippers are a few miles away.
"We need to get out of here or they'll think we killed LIFT-R and caused that explosion. Both of which are true!"
"Man, we have seriously fucked this town up in just one day."

-They track the slippers to a browstone building in a nice neighborhood. They ring the doorbell but no one answers.
"Kick it down, Vizi!"
"Damn it Boylord, you're a thief. Why don't you pick the lock?"
"Oh yeah!"

-They open the door and find a rat-bodyguard dead on the floor from a gunshot. Vizi uses his psychic sense and sees a vision of the bodyguard being shot... by Bebe!
"What the hell?"
"LIFT-ROWED MONEY TO THE RAT MAFIA. HE MUST HAVE GIVEN THEM THE SLIPPERS AS COLLATERAL. HE MUST HAVE TOLD BEBE AND SHE IS RECOVERING THEM."

-They head up the stairs and get to the office of Don Benito the Rat, head of the Rat Mafia, but he's dead on the floor.
"He doesn't seem injured.."
"Look at his cheeck. There's a lipstick-smeared peckmark."
"Poison!"

-They hear a car screeching away, and rush down the stairs to the back of the house, apparently Bebe drove off in the Don's racecar.
"She can drive?!"
"BEBE IS A VERY TALENTED CHICKEN."

-"BEBE HAS CONNECTIONS WITH THE BOATSWINE. HAVING KILLED THE DON, SHE IS NO DOUBT PLANNING TO ESCAPE THE CITY BY BOAT. SHE WILL BE HEADING TO THE DOCKS."
"We can follow on our retractable hoverbikes."
"BOLT-O IS TOO HEAVY. YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE BOLT-0 BEHIND!"
"Damn. I guess this is goodbye then."
"BOLT-O WILL NO DOUBT SEE YOU AGAIN IN THE FUTURE!"

-The PCs race around the large docks of Rat City, casting locate object. They find Bebe already escaping on a Boatswine motorized junk, and bribe some rat fishermen to follow it on their small boat.
"We're catching up, and the Boatswine seem to only have pistols."
"I fire my minigun!"
"You fumble and capsize your fishing boat."
"Fuck!"

-"Time to see if these hoverbikes can hover on water!"
"They can, but you won't be able to take the rat fishermen along."
"We weren't planning to!"

-As the PCs closed in, Bebe started firing at them with a tommygun. But as they get nearer she ducks back below deck, and then comes back up with a bazooka.
"That fucking chicken!"

-Boylord throws a dagger at Bebe.
"I spend 2 points of luck for extra damage."
"For a chicken?"
"She has a bazooka!"

-The dagger having taken out Bebe, Vizi leaps the hoverbike up onto the deck of the ship, and gets the Boatswine to surrender. Boylord goes below deck and after some searching finds the Comfy Slippers.
"I've got them! And they really are comfortable. When you put them on they adjust to your feet!"
"I can't believe we went through all this crap just for those things."

-As soon as Vegomagus touches the Comfy Slippers they're all teleported back up to the Sun. Vegomagus Invokes the King of Elfland to hand them over, but rolls a 1 and becomes even more Senile.
"And that's what you get for having the King of Elfland as a Patron."

That's it for this side-quest session. Stay tuned next time to find out if the PCs will finally make it to the Crown or Creation, or head off on another Side-quest!

Friday, 27 July 2018

Whether it's Marvel-Comics Cooking Shows or D&D E-Sports, the effort to remake geek-hobbies' as non-participant "Lifestyle Brands" is a product of the collaboration between Corporate Profiteers and SJW Regressive Totalitarians.

Owain Ap Eynon is a powerful but dangerous wizard, who was driven mad upon drawing power from the Maen Du'r Arddu standing stone. He has raised a small band of Welsh Hillfolk as rebels against the state, creating his own petty fiefdom in the mountains and building a tower with the assistance of summoned demonic forces. His tribesmen now raid villages to loot and sacrifice new victims to the Corraneid (Star-Elves), who periodically demand human brains for their own sinister purposes.

This is an adventure for middle or higher level characters (or tremendously clever, lucky and careful low-level characters) with a dangerous magical foe. It features elements from actual Welsh history and folklore/myth, and a dangerous tower based on real medieval constructions of the era to provide deadly surprises to the characters who dare enter it unbidden.

Sunday, 22 July 2018

Today, just a quick note, as I've been busy filming the next episode of Inappropriate Characters, which should come out tomorrow. Our guest star was Jobe Bittman, who did a fantastic job of keeping up with us.

Yesterday I ran our third session of my new Lords of Olympus campaign, and it's going great too. Expect a new play report from Aetos' player, which will come out sometime in the next two weeks. Also, a reminder: Lords of Olympus is currently on sale at the Precis Intermedia store!

And the day before that, I ran my Lion & Dragon game, which was also great. The PCs went raiding against some Saxons, and got their first taste of the dangerous and very magical Forest Sauvage.

Anyways, check back tomorrow for the link to the new Inappropriate Characters episode!

Saturday, 21 July 2018

The worst thing about the OSR-Taliban is that they make the past so fucking tiny.

They reduce the huge variety and possibility that was happening in the Old-School period into playing ONE edition of D&D in ONE particular style (which was by far not the most popular style, I should note). And use absurd interpretations of "scripture" to justify it.

After the last couple of days' responses to my blog entries, no one has the right to question my calling them the "Taliban" again. They have exactly the same goal: to go back in time and wipe out all the wide variety and diversity and innovation and change and just say that one tiny sliver of the past is the one and only truth, and worse, pretend that's all there ever was.

But Old-school can be bleeding edge gaming, if we let it. Tons of 3rd-wave OSR games have proven that, completely contrary to the perspective of the OSR-Taliban, if we open up our minds about how you can play D&D and what you can do with it mechanically (instead of looking for some mythical purity), we have hardly just begun to explore how far you can take old-school D&D

And ironically, this latter point of view is WAY closer to how people actually thought and felt in the old-school era. To quote someone else who, unlike J. Maliszewski, was actually fucking there:

" I started playing in 1978. Every gamastermaster I knew was strictly Anti-Gygax and we ALL created our own rules systems. So it's kind of laughable to me having been there to hear people claim that there was only one version of The Beginning. "

Admiration for Gary Gygax grew over the years, organically, in part because as he got older he became less of an asshole. Slavish Adoration of Appendix N emerged almost overnight, when Internet Fraud James Maliszewski invented the idea that this appendix is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PAGE IN THE HISTORY OF D&D by pulling it out of his own ass. Look at conversation on the internet about D&D, even old-school D&D, before that, NO ONE was talking about appendix N. It is not a long cherished legacy of our hobby, it is like a Mullah having taken some obscure line in one of the secondary sayings of the Prophet and declaring this to be the justification for his own personal jihad against any style other than the one he thinks will best suit his own gain.

In the REAL old-school era, people weren't obsessing about how to keep D&D "pure". Just the fucking opposite: they were going nuts with creativity. They were so excited about making new worlds, changing up the rules, inventing new systems, with FUCKING CHANGING STUFF.

THAT is what old-school is all about: creativity and innovation. Not 'purity' and backward-looking elitism. The OSR shouldn't be about picking apart apocryphal minutiae and trying to let the wise men amongst us decipher for all the rest of us "what gary really meant" by it so we can all go play in that same pure way. The OSR should be about taking a set of rules, a set of limits, and seeing just how much crazy stuff we can do within those limits. We shouldn't be going backward until there's no further backward to go; we should be looking at all the cutting-edge potential D&D had in that early era, and realizing that we have barely even started to push the limits of what you can do with it.

The OSR has to decide: it's either a Nostalgia Cult, or a design movement. It can't be both at the same time.

Actually, fuck that. The OSR HAS decided. The success of products like Red Tide, Arrows of Indra, Yoon Suin, Slumbering Ursine Dunes, the Islands of Purple-haunted Putrescence, and yes, Dark Albion (as well as many, many more) has made it very clear that the Nostalgia Cultists have lost. We don't need JMal or his followers pretending to have Gygax's Authority to tell us all how to play Old-School.